Focused attention meditation training modifies neural activity and attention: longitudinal EEG data in non-meditators

Kazuki Yoshida; Kenta Takeda; Tetsuko Kasai; Shiika Makinae; Yui Murakami; Ai Hasegawa; Shinya Sakai

doi:10.1093/scan/nsaa020

Focused attention meditation training modifies neural activity and attention: longitudinal EEG data in non-meditators

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2020 May 11;15(2):215-224. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsaa020.

Authors

Kazuki Yoshida¹, Kenta Takeda², Tetsuko Kasai³, Shiika Makinae⁴, Yui Murakami⁵, Ai Hasegawa⁶, Shinya Sakai¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0812, Japan.
² Department of Rehabilitation for the Movement Functions, Research Institute of National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, Tokorozawa 359-8555, Japan.
³ Faculty of Education, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 080-0811, Japan.
⁴ Graduate School of Education, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 080-0811, Japan.
⁵ Department of Occupational Therapy, Hokkaido Bunkyo University, Eniwa 061-4119, Japan.
⁶ Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0812, Japan.

Abstract

Focused attention meditation (FAM) is a basic meditation practice that cultivates attentional control and monitoring skills. Cross-sectional studies have highlighted high cognitive performance and discriminative neural activity in experienced meditators. However, a direct relationship between neural activity changes and improvement of attention caused by meditation training remains to be elucidated. To investigate this, we conducted a longitudinal study, which evaluated the results of electroencephalography (EEG) during three-stimulus oddball task, resting state and FAM before and after 8 weeks of FAM training in non-meditators. The FAM training group (n = 17) showed significantly higher P3 amplitude during the oddball task and shorter reaction time (RT) for target stimuli compared to that of the control group (n = 20). Furthermore, a significant negative correlation between F4-Oz theta band phase synchrony index (PSI) during FAM and P3 amplitude during the oddball task and a significant positive correlation between F4-Pz theta band PSI during FAM and P3 amplitude during the oddball task were observed. In contrast, these correlations were not observed in the control group. These findings provide direct evidence of the effectiveness of FAM training and contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the effects of meditation on brain activity and cognitive performance.

Keywords: EEG; attention; meditation; phase synchrony; training.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Attention / physiology*
Brain / physiology*
Cross-Sectional Studies
Electroencephalography
Female
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Meditation*
Reaction Time